Over 1,000 feared dead in Mozambique cyclone

JOHANNESBURG, Mar 19 (AP): More than 1,000 people were feared dead in Mozambique four days after a cyclone slammed into the country, submerging entire villages and leaving bodies floating in the floodwaters, the nation's president said.

"It is a real disaster of great proportions," President Filipe Nyusi said.

Cyclone Idai could prove to be the deadliest storm in generations to hit the impoverished southeast African country of 30 million people.

It struck Beira, an Indian Ocean port city of a half-million people, late Thursday and then moved inland to Zimbabwe and Malawi with strong winds and heavy rain.

But it took days for the scope of the disaster to come into focus in Mozambique, which has a poor communication and transportation network and a corrupt and inefficient bureaucracy.

Speaking on state Radio Mozambique, Nyusi said that while the official death toll stood at 84, "It appears that we can register more than 1,000 deaths."

Emergency officials cautioned that while they expect the death toll to rise significantly, they have no way of knowing if it will reach the president's estimate.

More than 215 people were killed by the storm in the three countries, including more than 80 in Zimbabwe's eastern Chimanimani region and more than 50 in Malawi, according to official figures.

International aid agencies and government officials are scrambling Tuesday to rescue families trapped by the floodwaters from rivers that have burst their banks and are still rising.

Mozambique's President Filipe Nyusi said the death toll could go as high as 1,000 from the cyclone and flooding. Although emergency workers caution they do not know if the fatalities will reach that estimate, they say this is the most destructive flooding in 20 years.